Zoraptor

Very much a 'rule of cool' episode- the metal bolted to the cars wouldn't stop most bullets effectively, apart from Rick et al being able to shoot Negan Dwight could have killed him and almost certainly escaped when they were all outside, the attack on the satellite station had a dozen guys standing around in a beautifully framed for tv group but also a perfect target for pretty much any weapon and the effectiveness of zombie hordes depends completely on plot requirements. Pretty good set up episode though, and I do like that they're listing every guest star for the season during the credits so you're not sure who is going to show up.

Yep, Sunday night US time. They have used proper tactics with short bursts and aimed shots in the show before, but their marksmanship is precisely as good or as bad as the plot demands and the tactics amount to what looks cool (and is needed for the plot) most of the time. I enjoy TWD well enough, but if I ever lost the ability to suspend disbelief I wouldn't last long watching because it isn't either very consistent or very logical if you think about it. Then again, I've seen a fair number of real world videos from actual war zones (eg Libya and Syria) where every single unrealistic and stereotypical 'tv' trope with regards to firing guns can be seen. About half of them feature the classic spray and pray of firing over a berm without even looking let alone firing an AK from the hip like they're Rambo.

Yeah, it's a gothic game. You need a level up plan rather than be a jack of trades and/or not to be worried about persistently running away from enemies. I'm level 5 I think, so I have some basic skills and equipment and I can reliably kill the turkey/ molerat analogues and other basic enemies without much difficulty at all. The snappers, gargoyles and most enemy humans I just as quickly fled from. I tried killing a pack leader snapper with a bow and it cheerfully shrugged off around 50 shots, which was a bit of a giggle. (Combat difficulty is a bit of an S curve it seems. Better weapons and armour, and skills that increase damage seem to have a massive effect on difficulty disproportionate to how much they look like they should have. +10% damage kills things far quicker than +10% would suggest, and even basic armour means that a mutant chicken has to hit you 10 times to kill you rather than twice. There's clearly some sort of damage reduction going on, so if you hit something with 15 damage reduction and do, say, 20 damage then that +10% damage takes the applied damage from 5 to 7, which will actually kill it 40% quicker. That may not be the exact system, but it seems to work similarly)

My main complaint with Elex is that it could do with some ease of use stuff. More than one map note and a minimap that shows terrain and the like. It makes sense not having them for a medievalesque game, but that's exactly the sort of stuff a PDA ought to have. I still haven't had a single genuine bug yet though just one or two dialogue quirks. Only other quirks are the tendency of the human enemies to chase you waving their melee weapons in the air impotently- but if they just pull out their ranged weapon and shoot you it's usually a one shot kill- and some slightly flakey hit box detection. I rather like the fatigue system though, it's not like it takes long to recharge and it stops Witcher style roll spam.

Mafia re-released on GOG. No licensed music, but there's already a mod for putting it back it if one is so inclined.

One of the odd and counter intuitive things about the neoliberal economic model is that governments giving money to businesses seems to increase the government's responsibility to those businesses rather than the reverse. Best example is agricultural subsidies, but it's common in many sectors. It's doubly ironic because in theory neoliberals don't believe in subsidies, except when they do as the result of lobbying or threats for pet sectors.

I don't think much at all changed at EA- the situation was not actually as bad as was made out by EASpouse which is somewhat different. Plus they now have a bunch of outsourcing studios in places like China where the situation is undoubtably worse. It does seem to be cyclical though, companies work out that there are diminishing returns from overworking people as quality declines and productivity gains reduce; then they forget that after a few years when the competent managers and producers have moved on or there is new top level management looking to make things 'cost effective'. The decline in quality in particular can be very important as bugs may be very hard to track down so it's better to have as few as possible from the start. That's why most of the outsourced studios are for things like textures and models though, easy to overwork since it doesn't matter so much if they make mistakes or die at their desks in their 20s.

We get these periodic overwork scandals and nothing changes- EASpouse, anyone? About as much practical effect as #StopKony2012. As others have said, game development is a vocational job, there are always other people willing to come in at the bottom of the pile because they theoretically love games development to replace those burning out from the practicalities. It's a similar situation with other vocational jobs like teaching, nursing or (low level) doctoring- because people want to do the jobs they get under valued and over exploited until their goodwill runs out and they realise anything else is better, then in comes the next bright eyed bushy tailed innocent willing to work 100 hour weeks semi permanently. This is also a world where games companies get subsidies for working in cities or countries and are seen as being great value added to be competed for with inducements; in those circumstances one may find a 'coincidental' lack of labour rules enforcements lest all the 'bureaucratic red tape' drives them off to some other city or country.

PB did dlc for Risen 2 and 3, at the behest of the publisher. There was an extra island for R3 and two (?) temples for Risen 2. But yeah, very little chance of a GOTY as Nordic aren't making them do paid dlc for Elex. Well, I haven't played either Gothic or Risen so that tells me very little. With all the praise from peeps here I'll be sure to check it out... when the obligatory GOTY edition drops. Gothic type games are pretty difficult to explain if you haven't played them. Maybe Dark Souls crossed with Fallout New Vegas crossed with Morrowwind? They're difficult without generally being unfair, you'll get slaughtered if you blunder into the wrong place, the story is goodish (not as much as FONV, but that's a high bar) and a lot of pleasure is got from the exploration of an interesting mostly open world. There's also a fair amount of lovable jankiness about them, they're flawed but it's made up for by their virtues.

I had the game pre ordered but I saw reviews anyways. One thing that concerns me and that maybe you can clear; is it true that the initial "hump" in difficulty that its common in Piranha games, stretches longer in this game due to its open world nature? Don't know if anyone could have played long enough to answer that definitively. It's so similar* to Risen 1/ Gothic 1/2 that i'd suspect the difficulty curve must be similar as well. Then again they were all open world games as well, so it was ridiculously easy to go from fighting hungry wolves to blundering into a shadowbeast in any of them at which point you would get butchered. Apart from getting killed by the first turkey the only other time I've died was missing a platform and falling after discharging my jetpack. That's my only minor complaint so far, the jetpack flight has a tendency to get stuck on the geometry on occasion, though I'll probably get used to it. *Seriously, right down to meeting 'Diego' and him running you off to the 'old camp' helpfully slaughtering all the pesky wildlife (from the previous games) on the way. I haven't met any snappers yet, but if I don't soon I promise to literally eat my keyboard.

Good bomb or bad bomb ? Within the first 30 minutes I was thrown down a cliff, robbed, and punched out. They're going for some strong Gothic vibes. So far I'm really enjoying it. I got brutally murdered by some sort of mutant turkey, just like in Risen 1. Ah, the memories! I did, however, manage to kill a rat on my first try. That good, huh? Better. It's a perfect 5/7. (A bit consolised in the UI, my ancient 5770 could probably have handled the graphics, the narrator sounds like he was dragged in off the street and told to do a US accent, and the main character doesn't sound much better. So far it's very much G1/2 or Risen 1 in the things that actually matter though. As well as in the voice acting department. I'm pretty much sure already I'll get my money's worth, albeit for some reason it only cost 35usd here so effectively started 30% off)

When it comes to linearity and being believable SS2 is an odd game. It's absolutely fantastic at making you want to think it's non linear and believable via its atmosphere and level design; and that's absolutely the most important thing. But, there's actually very little either intra or inter level non linearity, and the ship layout (especially the RIckenbacker; but also things like the 'radiation tubes' in engineering, or having the cargo bays so far from the lift, or having cryo tubes only accessible by ladder) makes little sense if you think about it. Fortunately it's extremely easy not to think about it.

Dead Space would be okay-ish at being a System Shock game, but only so-so. Good thing we have Prey now! Arkane was actually doing a SS3 for EA as well at one point, it was one of the first projects John Riccitiello killed when he got in as CEO. Haven't played Prey (2017) myself and won't unless it goes steam free so I can't comment on its similarities to System Shock or which I prefer in that regard. Dead Space however is... very strongly reminiscent of SS2 which is one of my absolute favourites. I'd bet just about anything that they'd read its original design docs since some parts are nearly directly lifted from it- you're even looking for a woman and following her instructions who turns out to be dead and the game's main antagonist. Which was arguably done better than in SS2, as I was sure Polito was dead well before she was found while I wasn't in DS. I don't mind the similarities at all because DS is a very good game in its own right and it's taking its inspiration from a great game which is what a sequel ought to do yet many don't. I also don't mind the dissimilarities since, to be fair, SS2's gameplay tended towards being a smidge janky. I had a list of the similarities (SS2 had proposed zero g/ vacuum sections, hydroponics in SS2 was intended originally to be exactly as DS hydroponics turned out, the cutscene endings are... thematically similar, shall we say; and more but I've forgotten them).

Looks more or less official that Raqqa is fully captured now. That probably means that the foreign fighters did leave in the transfer deal as well as the locals, and over especially french objections. Lots of rebuilding needed anyway, Raqqa wasn't a huge city but it looks like a moonscape. Rather less comment on that than there was when it was Aleppo. They probably tolerate each other somehow. Probably. Plenty of people on both sides who'd be spoiling for a fight though, and plenty of flashpoints for them to get excited over- oil, roads to Iraq, enclaves, Raqqa, Tabqa and its dam. Plus Turkey isn't at all keen on the SDF. Depends a lot on what the US does once ISIS is finished and also on how democratic the Syrian Democratic Forces actually are plus how flexible the government will be. Even just taking the 'arab' out of Syrian Arab Republic would probably go a long way as a goodwill gesture.

I was wondering that as well. Then again, from what we heard about SoT they could hardly have been any more hands on this time around. When it comes right down to it Obsidian is a far better fit for SP than any corporate studio except perhaps Rockstar or Volition. That's Los Santos. San Fierro is the 2nd city in GTASA, where you go after you get betrayed by those despicable traitorous snakes Smoke and Ryder; it is definitely a San Fransisco analogue (GG bridge, steep roads with 'flat' cross roads to throw sparks and get air off, prominent gay quarter etc, and the name). But anyway, this is distracting me from far more important things: Elex! Elex! uber alles!

Bit sad about Visceral. I'm a big System Shock fan and Dead Space was good enough that I'd have been perfectly happy if it had stayed as System Shock 3.

Giving a South Park game to Ubisoft San Fransisco was always a red flag. I only know SF from television (and GTA: SA) but apparently it's full of people being unbearably trendy, generating smug and smelling their own farts. Not a great fit for South Park. Anyway, have you fine people of the forum heard the good news about our lord and saviour: Elex?

He isn't- he's just right wing- but the electoral system means that his most likely coalition would involve the Freedom Party who would almost certainly demand a complete stop to muslim immigration. Only other alternative would be a grand left/ right coalition.

Empty cans of generic bourbon and cola or a 20 year old knock off Metaliica T shirt is more the bogan style of memorial.

There have been a few hundred jihadi left and Raqqa has been about to be captured in the final assault for well over a month now. The transfer deal they've done would usually be the end of things (and despite the coalition complaining about transfer deals vociferously it's at least the 3rd the SDF have done with ISIS) but there will inevitably be plenty of fighters who will prefer to die for their 'capital' rather than run off to Abukamal to die in a couple of months time. ISIS is almost completely irrelevant at this point anyway, all it has done for the last six months is lose territory at an increasing rate to everyone; the big question is who gets what from them and if the government and SDF in Syria are going to end up fighting instead of broadly tolerating each other. Most significant Syria/ Iraq development of the past month was Kirkuk being taken by the Iraqi government over literally the last day only. It was inevitable that the Kurds couldn't hold Kirkuk since it's on a big plain with few natural defences- and the peshmerga are nowhere near as competent as their media reputation makes them out to be- but I think everyone thought they would at least try. Instead they routed instantly amid accusations of betrayal and basically no fighting besides some very minor skirmishes. Makes the independence referendum look exceptionally dumb in retrospect.

I've run into a couple of skill 6 locks even on Reaper's Coast. To be fair, they were both 'short cut' locks where you'd get the key eventually if you kept playing (eg the door to the lich under Mordus's house where you get the 'key' in the Mordus battle anyway), but you don't even have optional persuasion 6 checks since the skill won't go that high. I haven't finished but I'd agree 90% with Labadal's comments as well, most of them wholeheartedly. I really couldn't list skills as a positive though. The root problem is largely the shield system*, that's a given- indeed, I'd presume a party with only one physical damage character would have the reverse problem to mine- but the fact is that status abilities relying on your parties' minor damage type are almost entirely deprecated while buffs and especially summoning (root skill and any sub abilities including those in different schools) retain their utility across almost any party build and any encounter; making them disproportionately useful. Warfare is also the key utility skill on the physical damage side, but that's way less extreme. *I'm still decidedly grumpy about it even after more than 3 weeks. I said it at the beginning and it's still true, that fix is far worse than the problem of DivOS1 combat results depending a lot on who got their status effects off first.

It definitely was the Austrian Presidency vote but it was largely symbolic (non executive Presidency) and a fair while before the German one. The Freedom Party candidate only just lost that but they came 3rd this time around which I guess is technically an improvement.

EU lurches from one crisis to another. Kind of a shame the Austrian election wasn't before the German one, Merkel may have done even worse if two of their neighbours were refusing to bail her out of her refugee problem instead of just one. Disappointing that Austria is so irrelevant really, apart from Bateman references (and he really ought to have been chasing muslims with a chainsaw while in his budgie smugglers in my previous post) we could also have some Apocalypse Now references too.

I'm not sure I'm going to be able to take Austria's new leader seriously, his resemblance to Bale's Patrick Bateman is such that I'm going to be expecting him to start waxing lyrical about the philosophical merits of Huey Lewis and the News or Phil Collins in between wanting to expel all muslims. NBC should rightly be raked over the coals, but the New York Times and NPR have been all over it, and they are very liberal. NYT allegedly spiked at least one Weinstein story. Given what happened with Jimmy Saville in the UK I'd be surprised if pretty much every major news organisation hadn't spiked at least one exposé.

It's the same situation with The Expanse and Riverdale as well I think- nearly everywhere except the US they're on netflix next day, in the US it's on SyFy/ CBS paywall and a very few other places have special deals like The Expanse being on Sky here. Orville ought to be very easy to watch in the US though, it's bog standard Fox network, 930pm Thursdays after Gotham.